- Joined
- Aug 28, 2019
- Messages
- 601
- Purraise
- 17
It took a long time for Willow to come into my life. It may not look long to other people, but I didn't have a cat from September, 2018 until the last week of July in 2019. I wasn't looking for a reminder cat or a replacement cat but she is just enough like Franklin that I feel like I can move on with my life and also just enough like Koala and Wallaby that I can remember them fondly and also remember that I am the same person I was when I was a scrappy little teenaged busker with three kittens crawling around in my guitar case.
Nobody can ever replace Franklin. He was my soulmate even though he wasn't my property. We were friends and equals, even though I called him my "fur son person" and he loved his real owner so much that it would have been cruel to try to keep him.
Wallaby and I raised our kids together and helped each other as best as we could, but our resources were limited. Franklin and I did the same with my midlife miracle baby and Franklin's owner. His owner wasn't a GOOD owner, but he was my son and Franklin loved him.
I will always grieve for that family. Franklin was a part of it. Missing him does not mean that I loved my human sons any less. I'm ready to love another cat now and she is everything I could have wanted: female, young, adventurous, just the right amount of Siamese blood for my current circumstances, resilient, intelligent and with a loud enough purr to soothe my insomnia.
But her similarities and differences to Franklin and Koala are the perfect reminder or these special cats from my past who I will never forget. I will own her and spoil her and take responsibility for her in ways I never could while I was raising human children.
That's okay now. Koala, Wallaby, and Wombat were my children before I had children. My current fur kids are my children now. The war did not succeed in destroying me or my family. My family is like this thing that isn't a log: 100 years or so ago, people thought it was a log but they left it there and, because it was a seemingly dead piece of a redwood tree, new sprouts came out of it and it is now something that will become a grove of new trees sometime in the future.
I love my dogs and I loved my children but I have always had cats.
Nobody can ever replace Franklin. He was my soulmate even though he wasn't my property. We were friends and equals, even though I called him my "fur son person" and he loved his real owner so much that it would have been cruel to try to keep him.
Wallaby and I raised our kids together and helped each other as best as we could, but our resources were limited. Franklin and I did the same with my midlife miracle baby and Franklin's owner. His owner wasn't a GOOD owner, but he was my son and Franklin loved him.
I will always grieve for that family. Franklin was a part of it. Missing him does not mean that I loved my human sons any less. I'm ready to love another cat now and she is everything I could have wanted: female, young, adventurous, just the right amount of Siamese blood for my current circumstances, resilient, intelligent and with a loud enough purr to soothe my insomnia.
But her similarities and differences to Franklin and Koala are the perfect reminder or these special cats from my past who I will never forget. I will own her and spoil her and take responsibility for her in ways I never could while I was raising human children.
That's okay now. Koala, Wallaby, and Wombat were my children before I had children. My current fur kids are my children now. The war did not succeed in destroying me or my family. My family is like this thing that isn't a log: 100 years or so ago, people thought it was a log but they left it there and, because it was a seemingly dead piece of a redwood tree, new sprouts came out of it and it is now something that will become a grove of new trees sometime in the future.
I love my dogs and I loved my children but I have always had cats.
